


The Sound of Shattering Glass

by Verbophobic



Series: Fluffy Fireballs [7]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, M/M, ace is dead, conon complacient
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:13:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6567772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbophobic/pseuds/Verbophobic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco/Ace centric. Marineford happened. Canon complacent. </p><p>The sound of shattering glass is something that everyone knows, that everyone has heard at least once in their lifetime. But Marco has never experienced it. Never been the glass least of all what had shattered. Everyone has that breaking point, that time when even a feather touching them causes them to fall apart and crumble. But the question is not about how they fall, how they crumble, but rather how do they put the pieces back together? Is it with glue? Or do they stitch each shard back? Perhaps they cut the cracking area off before it spreads too far and wide? Marco learns what his breaking point was, is, and he finds a way to possibly put himself back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sound of Shattering Glass

Ace was gone. He was really gone.

Marco would never admit to anyone but his closest friend, Izou, that he had cried. No one would ever know that he, Marco the Phoenix; Whitebeards first division commander, had sobbed his heart out over such a powerful personal loss. Breaking down hadn’t helped, just prolonged the suffering of him and what remained of his family for days as he sobbed until even his fruit’s healing power could not help him. Everyone had lost someone, but he had lost so many. Personal friends and allies that he had never thought could be taken down lay dead on a frozen sea or burned to ashes and spread across their mutual love as pirates. Even with so many losses- so much heartbreak- they didn’t even manage to save the single man they set out to. They had sacrificed everything and their gamble had caused them to go all in; they came back with nothing.

Whitebeard had stayed behind, giving his sons and his surviving allies the opportunity to escape, the chance at survival he knew he didn’t have after today. He sacrificed his life to cowardly men unworthy of taking it so that everyone that still lived- still breathed even if later their hearts could not take all that was lost and they too joined that number- could escape the frozen water that had once been a bay. 

Ace was killed before their father could do anything, even before their father had fallen. Marco had lived long enough to know that the pain Whitebeard had to go through was terrible. That no man should have to see his son die, to have to bury their child before they die. For someone as loving of family as their father had been to see even one of the many he took under his wind lost was a deep scarring blow to the giant man’s heart.

All Marco ever saw anymore upon closing his eyes was that terrifying fist of magma. It tore through Ace like a knife pushed through butter. There was little that stopped it or slowed the bubbling heated fist as it pushed too fast- yet far too slowly- through the young man. The mortal blow didn’t just destroy the man it went through, but everyone that was witness to it. Every man, woman, and beast that had come to save Ace died a little- some a lot- on the inside upon that blow, upon seeing that their endeavor was for naught and that the one man that everyone was fond of was dead. 

The blow that really killed most was Whitebeard’s death. It was like kicking those that were already beaten. Stabbing a dead man again and again just to see the horror that crossed the faces of the loved ones as they were forced to watch and do naught else. It was their way of beating the wounded. They had seen the cracks in the glass and took a sledgehammer to the mirror just to make sure that the job was completed.

Blonde hair that was found only at the top of the man’s head was clenched in white knuckled fists. Tears began to stream down rosy red cheeks, and the cerulean eyes that leaked were bloodshot. Marco choked out sobs as he sat up. Sheets pooled around his waist as his elbows rested on his covered legs. His jaw clenched so tight that all the muscles in his neck were taught and visible. As more tears flowed and his nose dipped his face contorted into an agonized expression. Lips parted but the corners pulled down, his eyes wide open for one of the few instances in his life, and his brows scrunched up.

It had been another nightmare in this sea of endless night terrors. Night after night, day after day, the reminders of loss pile up and he has no outlet. No way to release the tension. Fear builds up high and far, like a pot filled with water turned on high. With no one to lower the heat he feels himself boiling and bubbling over. Every day the heat is on, the pressure to be what everyone needs is there and no one is there for him, for what he needs. So now, at night, as he lays alone in the bed that he used to share with Ace, he boils over. The froth at first just tossing and turning but then more spills hissing against the flame under him and causing the nightmares. Then as it’s too much for too long he evaporates, burns the bottom of the pot as he breaks and shatters, sobbing loudly but there is no one in the rooms near him to hear.

To his right, at the very end of the hall, a giant open expanse with a bed and so much medical equipment that it could have been mistaken as a store room, lay the place his father used to occupy. Pops wouldn’t have survived forever, Marco had always known that, but with the nurses and the constant aid he should have had so much longer. He should have still been there this night, snoring loudly but far enough away from even Marco’s room no one would have heard him. Even if Pops had been in there, only the fluctuating haki of the first division commander would have given his heart break away.

Left of the broken man’s room was a room that had been unoccupied for so long, he was sure dust had filled it. Spiders and other crawlers might have found a home there if not for the cleaning crew. The second division should have had a commander in there, filling the room with snores and flames. But Ace had never lived there. He had stayed with his division’s bunks and had never been above them until Marco. He had never tried to be more than his division though, he’d just moved into Marco’s room to be with the man he loved. The flame controler had wanted to be with Marco any to everyway possible, from sexual experiences to the most innocent of naps all the way to even sharing food. Ace had on more than one occasion ‘helped’ with night watch by sleeping in the crows nest as Marco was on lookout. The room that was filled with dust was never the second division commanders, this room filled with the sounds of something shattering was his.

Even the room after that one was empty. For the third division had long since moved into the fourth division’s room. Izou and Thatch had been together for nearly as long as Marco could remember. He knew he wasn’t the only one still mourning loss. Thatch, commander of the fourth division, had been lost to them the moment Marshal D. Teach betrayed them and stabbed the every happy- every friendly- division’s leader in the back to rob him. Marco had thought to seek Izou out at first after the loss of Ace, but he knew the man was dealing in his own way. 

More importantly he knew Izou was finding a way to heal while Marco was stuck here. Stuck in the room that reminded him of Ace. Everything from the sheets and pillows to Marco’s own clothes smelled of cinnamon and burnt wood, smelt just like Ace tasted and created cracks within Marco’s very being. Every object held a memory, god and bad, and they all caused those cracks to spread further and further. Sounds that were so normal were intensified here. The creaking of the boards under him as the ship rocked caused the cracks to widen, because he remembered holding ace in his arms, lulled to a peaceful slumber by those sounds.

Worst of all, Marco might suppose, was knowing that he couldn't let his anguish out. He couldn’t scream, couldn’t break anything, and he couldn’t just disappear as he so much wanted to. There were almost a thousand brothers that were looking up to him, all eyes watching for his next move, ears that listened and hung onto his every murmur, and hands that reached out begging for help and comfort for their own losses were high. Marco didn’t have the luxury to break like everyone else because it was him that gave them that luxury, that ability. The knowledge that when they needed to shatter he would be there to collect all the pieces when they could not and he would be the one to glue it all back together. 

His blood and sweat would heal them but that was his curse. He could and would fix everyone else but when it came time not even his own phoenix tears could heal himself. He knew that to fix the shattered glass- the shards- that he had become he would need a blazing fire that could reheat him and mold his shards back into place. Not put him back the way he was, but put him together in a new way that would possibly give him the ability to continue on, to restart. 

But as he turned to ashes, as the nightmare haunted him every sleepless night and remained right behind the veil of his eyes every time he so much as blinked, he knew that he wasn’t going to rise from this. He couldn’t be reborn from the loss that had torn his heart away and shredded his very being so thoroughly that the same red he had once loved in a fire haunted him as it turned into black magma. Marco wanted to spread his wings and fly away fast, he needed to run as far from this torment that was around every corner. No one knew that every time he looked at them, he could remember all the moments they shared with everyone that was lost. Every welcom that Pops extended, the fires and heat that Ace created when their boilers shut down and the divisions threatened to freeze when they were near a winter island, or how Thatch put his very love and essence into every bite of food the crew of 1600 took. Every waking breath tore him further and further apart.

As he closed his eyes to force a ragged breath into his deprived lungs- he often forgot to even breath when these terrors took over- Ace was there. That stupid boyish grin that had softened Marco’s hardened heart, with those innocent frecks that stole every thought Marco ahd for the longest while, he lifted his left arm to show off his muscles and his right hand touched the bulge, touched right where the tattoo was-

Marco didn’t know how or when he passed out. All he knew was that he awoke and couldn’t take it. He had to make a break for it. As he ran passed Izou he shouted he would be back. Then he was flying without wings across the deck. Arms spread and the fire engulfed him. In seconds he was gone, heading somewhere that he didn’t know of but following the pull towards the East Blue that he so desperately needed to get to.

.~:*:~.

Izou watched the ship for a week, everyone working hard to keep everything up and running. Nearly everyone fell to their knees when they saw a blue flame making it’s way to them. Marco was returning. They never realized how much they had needed him to function since the destruction of their father, the two commanders, brothers, and allies.

He landed effortlessly and they could just see that something about his trip had changed him. He wasn’t back to Marco; Commander of the First division, but there was something different in a good way about him. Not that many had truly noticed how fragile the unbreakable commander had become, but everyone had noticed how wearied and hurt he had been.

But now those eyes were back to their lazy look with a glint of something hidden within them and his blank frown had shifted in the opposite direction to give off a nearly cocky smirk. There was something different about him other than that though. Something that was hard to place, and it was Izou that found it.

The okama moved forward on fairly shaky legs when he stood to make his way over to Marco. His hand reached out to touch the once commander- now captain. The purple jacket had both arms torn off and there on Marco’s left arm was a tattoo.

The left side of the M swirled about with beautiful lines that not even Izou with his skilled fingers could create. The A below it was sharp but it too had a soft edge. The slant of the R that every letter held but was far more noticeable here showed the anger he held within him. The C screamed with all the agony everyone seemed to be feeling. And the last O of his name was smooth, the swirls within and about it trying to convey the message that they could be fixed, could continue on. It was the red X that Izou traced. It caressed the ‘A’ like Ace’s own tattoo had once done to the ‘S’ in the ‘ASCE’.


End file.
